Silent promises, p.7
Silent Promises, page 7
part #3 of Dark & Silent Night Series
Then again, my name had legally been changed to match my nom de plume. Not that anyone but my agent, a sympathetic judge, and I knew that.
As Drew leaned in to kiss my lips, I swore to myself that I would try to love him. I would give it a real shot and somehow bury my first love deep enough inside my heart that I could pretend he was just a character I’d dreamed up.
One day, Drew would feel like the real deal. The flesh and blood man who was there to sweep me off my feet and marry me so that my father would never be able to use me as a bargaining chip. It didn’t even occur to me to wonder what Drew would think about my circumstances, the real name I’d have to trust him with before we could be legally married, or how that name came to be.
TEN
Rage
LOGAN
“It’s almost Christmas, Logan.”
“And?” I tuned out whatever Adrian was blathering on about over the phone as I moved across the tarmac at a pace that was just shy of a jog. “Look, I understand everyone is worried, but I have to do this. I’ll be back before Christmas, hopefully with a guest.”
“Lo, she disappeared for a reason.”
“Yeah and that reason was because I fucked up and let her down.”
“You said she was engaged to another man. Don’t you think it’s time to finally let her go?
There was something off about the way my brother spoke to me. It sounded almost as though he had been the one to give up on Aoife all those years ago. They were never close, though. I wanted to ask, to find out if there was something else going on with my brother, but the need to get to Aoife, to put her ahead of everyone else this time, won out. I would check in with Adrian later.
“I can’t.” I hung up the call before he could argue with me further.
I was not operating under any delusions. After what I did, there was a good chance that Aoife would never want to speak to me again. I understood and accepted that. Even if her choice was to remain a stranger to me, I had to hear that directly from her. That was why I was about to hop on a flight to San Diego. If her friend, Shaina Carmine, lived there, then chances were that Aoife did as well.
About twenty minutes after we took off, a message came through from Miles on my phone.
Miles: We got another hit on your girl.
Logan: What do you mean? Like an actual hit or something else?
Miles: Caught another ping from the laptop. Facial rec caught her at the airport.
I stewed over that last message for the duration of my flight. There was no point in asking for more information. Miles would update me as soon as he knew where she was headed, if she didn’t change her ID for a new identity again.
My cell rang the minute we touched down, and I didn’t hesitate to answer. “What the fuck did you find out?” I yelled into the phone as I grabbed my bags and got ready to hop off the plane.
“She’s here,” Miles huffed impatiently.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“We got another hit on the laptop. She’s in New York. Arrived today, you probably passed her in the sky as the two of you swapped coasts.”
“What fucking kind of luck is this?” I growled and then marched in to see the pilot. “I’m headed back, but I still need someone out here to talk to the friend and find out everything.”
“I can put Christian on it.”
I thought about that for a minute and decided that would probably work best. “Do you know where he is right now?”
“He’s currently in LA. I’ll divert him from his job there and send him to San Diego to find out what he can.”
“Thanks, Miles.”
“And don’t worry about yelling at the pilot to do your bidding. They’re going to fuel up and get you back in the air as quickly as possible.”
“You’re the best. If you don’t already have someone on it, get eyes on my girl and don’t lose her.”
“I will do what I can. We’re still searching for where she went after leaving the airport, but we have a picture of the man she was with - presumably her fiancé. That should help us track them both down.”
“Fuck,” I hissed. I didn’t need another damn reminder that Aoife was taken now. “Stay on top of it. Nothing else matters.”
“What about your brothers?” Miles asked.
“Nothing. I prioritized someone else’s bullshit ahead of her once before and look what happened. Never again, Miles.”
“Good. If you’d given me any other answer, I wouldn’t have helped you.”
“Thanks, asshole.”
Miles had been just as worried about Aoife over the past twelve years and held a lot of guilt because he dropped her off at her dorm without a thought to her safety. When she disappeared, it killed a bit of my friend’s spirit, as none of us were sure she was even alive. The only indicator we had was that her father had made a huge stink about his daughter’s whereabouts in the beginning, but he hadn’t started a war to get her back or retaliate against anyone. It was the reason we all assumed she had disappeared of her own free will.
It took entirely too fucking long to turn around and get back to New York. By the time I landed, exhaustion threatened to pull me under. I stayed in contact with Miles, and we had a fairly decent idea of where Aoife would be that evening. I didn’t want to wait. A million things could go wrong, but I had to see this through. If she truly, knowingly chose this life, then there was nothing to be done anyway.
If that was the case, why in the fuck would she still be operating under an assumed identity?
Nothing made sense. Least of all my best friend’s sudden reappearance. I couldn’t be bothered to think about what I’d do if she chose the path she was on with eyes wide open. That would mean she had well and truly given up on us and the life we always dreamed of. Granted, I deserved for that to happen, considering why she ran without me in the first place.
“Here. Go change,” Miles ordered as he thrust my suit at me the minute I walked into MadDox Security Company.
“Thanks,” I tossed back on my way to the ensuite bathroom in my office. After flying all fucking day, I took a quick shower to try to wake myself up and clear away the airplane funk, suited up, and then made my way back into my office.
“What are you doing here?” I asked Lucian as he stood there in his own monkey suit and grinned at me in that way he did that was slightly discomfiting, or maybe menacing was a better descriptor.
“You think I’m going to let my baby brother walk into a mafia engagement party operating as a holiday shindig and not be there as backup? We’re getting in, getting your girl, and getting the fuck out. No harm to you, Aoife, or me.”
“Everyone else?” I questioned.
“Collateral damage doesn’t bother me. It’s not like anyone there will call the cops if shit goes down.”
“What about Calista?”
“She’s safe.”
My brother was a man of few words. He was also a man of action. If he said we were all getting in and back out again unharmed, then we would. Everything he said about not giving a damn if there’s collateral damage was also the real deal. He’d burn the city down for any of us. Our parents might not have given a shit about us, but we always had each other’s back.
“Are Adrian and Gideon coming?” Miles asked when he entered into the office straightening his tie.
“They’re both neck-deep in shit.” Lucian chuckled and shook his head as if there was something funny about it.
“What’s going on with them?” I asked.
“Women troubles. We’re going to leave them to it while we deal with yours. If we need them, they’re on standby.”
Miles shrugged, and I gave a quick tip of my chin in acknowledgment as we left the office. “I can’t believe she’s here,” I whispered more to myself than anyone else.
“Doesn’t feel real,” Miles agreed.
“It will,” my brother said as he made his way onto the elevator. “Stay with me. Don’t let any of those punks lure either one of you off.” Lucian turned his dead-eye, in-the-zone, man-hunter eyes on me. “Did you put on the extra layer of your suit?”
“You know I did.” The extra layer was a bullet proof material that was deceptively thin and easily concealed beneath clothing.
It was something new that our research and development team picked up and perfected based on the Diamene material that some collegiate knuckleheads theorized at a local college. We all invested in it to make it real. MadShield was the product. It was a combination of Graphene layers, some special, super-secret added scientific shit that I didn’t even understand, and it all boiled down to lightweight, second-skin armor that hardened to the strength of a fucking diamond when impacted by a bullet traveling at velocity.
“Good thing they already ran the real-world trials on it,” Miles said as he adjusted his tie again. It was the one tell that my best friend was nervous to be one of the few humans to go into a situation where our new body armor might be necessary. “We should probably look into lining ball caps with it or something. These fancy undershirts aren’t going to keep us from the finality of a bullet to the head.”
“Noted,” I agreed as we made our way out of the elevator, our building, and into the waiting car that would take us to the one place where the woman I’d been dreaming about since I was six fucking years old would be. After twelve, long fucking years of not seeing her, the possibilities of how the night could go were endless.
Lucian handed me a Glock10 with a suppressor on it. “Just in case.” I gave a nod and replaced the one I had holstered, knowing that the one my brother handed off wouldn’t be traceable. “Remember, you can’t put a hole in her father if he’s there.”
“Why the fuck not? He’s the reason I lost her.” Lucian cocked his brow up as if to challenge that. “If he hadn’t mandated that she had to marry a goon of his choosing, she would have never ran. We would have been able to fix my fuck ups.”
“You don’t know that.”
“She wouldn’t have run,” I doubled down. “Even if we couldn’t fix everything, she wouldn’t have run. There was always a chance that we could fix things if she was here to do that.”
“No matter what, you can’t kill the fucker. Not yet.”
“Why?” It was Miles who asked for the explanation that time.
“He doesn’t have an heir, specifically, he doesn’t have a male heir to take over. When there’s no male heir, whoever marries the female inherits the position as head of the family. That’s how the Sweeney Gang has always worked. It’s why he was very adamant about who his daughter would marry. If we take him out, it will create a power vacuum of assholes who want to be the man on top, and it will create a world of chaos for us.”
“Because whoever takes over has to get revenge,” Miles muttered.
“That’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Lucian informed us.
Fucking hell.
There was no way Aoife would trust me if her father was still out there able to call the shots. I didn’t have time to come up with a foolproof plan, though. We had arrived and it was go time.
“Let’s go. If shots are fired, stay low, find cover, and don’t be afraid to return fire.”
ELEVEN
Whiplash
AOIFE
“I thought we were just going to meet your mother,” I said to Drew as he pulled me into what looked like one of the formal parties that my father used to host. He smirked back at me as he looked over his shoulder and took hold of my hand.
“We will see my mother inside, but there may be an engagement party waiting for us.”
I dug my heels in and refused to move, though Drew ignored my efforts and continued to pull me along behind him. “Remember when I said I didn’t want a party?” I asked.
“Sure, but Mom didn’t want to take no for an answer. I understand you don’t have any family,” he paused for a moment, and that knowing smirk was back as he spoke, “but Mom expects it.”
“It’s not about her. This is our engagement,” I argued.
“Fine. I expect it, too. It’s something that is going to happen.”
“Excuse me?” Drew had never argued with me like this before. The smirk had never been a thing in California either. It was like he transformed into a totally different person during our flight east.
“Listen, we’re both dressed up, Mom’s waiting. What’s the harm?”
“Who else is here?”
He shrugged his shoulders and tugged on my hand again. “Humor me. This is something I need you to do. I put up with you wanting to stay in the dark for far too long. The least you can do is give my family this.”
I couldn’t even find my voice. “Put up with?” I whispered. My feet came unstuck when he tugged on me again, and before it even registered, we were inside what looked to be a decked-out ballroom. A chill ran up and down my spine as I remembered all the parties my father had dragged me to when my mom checked out of our lives after my sister died.
In the beginning, I’d been the cute little princess in beautiful dresses. I thought I was important, that my dad loved me, and that he doted on his little princess as he showed me off to his friends. As I grew older, some of the shine wore off and the tension involved in many of those parties bled through. I knew the business deals my father managed during those events was the focus, not his daughter.
That changed once more when I started to grow breasts. The looks from his friends and colleagues transformed into cringeworthy moments as the attention showered on me morphed as well. My father scrutinized those interactions in a way that should have worried me then. It did worry me, but my attendance at those parties was few and far between with me being shipped off to boarding school the majority of the year. Plus, I always had thoughts of Logan to keep me grounded.
My heart twisted as I thought of my former best friend, the only man I’d ever given my heart to. The way he let me down was almost worse than knowing my own father never loved me. I had been nothing more than an immensely powerful bargaining chip Bill Quinn could use. I often wondered what would have been different if I’d been unattractive, fat, or had some other outward flaw that turned men off. Would he have loved his daughter then or only saw the liability and burden that wouldn’t pay off for him later?
I hated to think about it because it always sent me into a depressive spiral. Then again, the party I was just dragged into against my will brought it all back full force. My eyes roamed over the people who stared in our direction the minute Drew and I walked through the door. There was something familiar about some of the people. It wasn’t just the atmosphere.
It wasn’t until my father came into view that I realized why it all seemed so familiar. The men on the periphery were the same ones who were always there at these types of events when I was growing up. The only difference was that they were all a bit older, some had lost their shape and gained a new, rounder one over the years. Hair had thinned, wrinkles had set in, but the greedy, lustful glances were all the same ones that I remembered from the last party I attended.
“Hello, Aoife,” my father called out to me as if no time had passed since I last saw him. When I didn’t respond, he offered me what I once would have thought of as a fatherly, loving, kind smile. “I was happy to hear you had finally come to your senses and decided to marry Andrew”
“What?” I spun to face the man I reluctantly called my fiancé. That same knowing smirk, tipped a little higher with what looked a whole lot like victory, was aimed at me. “You…” I couldn’t find the words for the deception.
“I knew who you were all along. In fact, I had our inevitable meeting arranged by that vapid friend of yours.” He rolled his eyes because I was the one to call her vapid and he knew she wasn’t a friend of mine. She just happened to operate in the same circles I did. “Don’t be so surprised, babe. Did you think you could outrun your fate forever?” His dark chuckle sent my nervous system into fight or flight. “Don’t worry, the paperwork will have your legal name on it,” he announced.
“I doubt that very much,” I snapped, as I finally gained back my ability to speak. My agent helped me quietly get my name changed years ago. My legal name more accurately matched my pen name now, and no one ever knew what that was. The tips of my ears reddened as I thought about Logan ever finding out that my legal last name had been his for years. I wasn’t about to let any of the people in this room know about it either.
“It’s good to see you again,” my father said as he came forward with his arms held wide. I allowed the hug and even returned it, but then I took two solid steps back away from him and turned to my fiancé.
“I’m not sure what the two of you thought would happen here, but this is not going to go down the way you think it will. You know that I didn’t agree to marry you.”
“Your initial hesitation is of no consequence to me. Now that you know this is where you belong, there is no question of whether we’ll move forward with the wedding.”
“Actually, knowing this means there’s no way in hell I will agree,” I informed him.
“Aoife!” My father’s stern use of my name as an admonishment of my behavior triggered something in me.
“I once loved and respected you. You were my daddy ,and I would have done just about anything for you until I realized you expected to be able to sell me to the highest bidder. I owe you nothing. I owe Drew even less.”
“You always were stubborn. Your sister would have done her duty.”
“Then it is a damn shame she died and I lived.”
“Don’t ever say that,” my father snapped as Drew grabbed hold of my arm and pulled me off to the side where others couldn’t overhear our conversation.
